2048 Snake: Tips, Cheats, and Strategies

2048 Snake starts off simply enough: it’s a game of Snake, but with number tiles, where you have to eat smaller number tiles (which get added to the snake) in order to eat larger number tiles. Dissecting a strategy can be tricky, but there are a few good tactics that you can put to use in order to dominate the leaderboards.

1. You want to have a few red tiles on the board at a time.

Your first thought when playing might be to keep as few red tiles as possible on the board, right? Wrong. You want to keep a few available when possible. The reason for this is that if you gobble up too many of the high-value tiles, the game will start to throw out even higher numbers, forcing you to play at a breakneck pace, and it’s quite likely that the green tiles you’ll get won’t be able to quickly turn the red to green again, and you’ll start to get crowded. So, if you can leave just enough red tiles on the board, you can help keep the game at a reasonable pace.

2. Target small-number green tiles.

You want as few small number tiles on the board as possible because you want the new tiles that spawn in to be higher-value tiles so that you can turn red tiles to green when necessary. Leaving a 1 or 2 sitting around for a while doesn’t help you at all with keeping up the pace of the board. So, whenever possible, collect these small value tiles. Remember, each tile is worth 1 point all the same, and while sometimes they will lengthen your snake, they can also cause chain reactions that can shorten it and save you.

3. Keep the corners as clear as possible.

The corners are dangerous places to navigate into because it’s easy to get trapped. But you want to make sure that they stay as clear as possible because if a green tile gets trapped by red tiles, then that makes the board just that much smaller, and makes it harder for new green tiles with the numbers you need to spawn in. So, if you can safely in and out of a corner, getting those green tiles off the board will keep the board at its full operable size.

4. Serpentine.

The idea is to keep the snake as functionally small as possible. Ideally, when leaving one section of the map, you’re going to a whole new one. So why not have the snake take up two columns instead of one, by going back and forth horizontally, and then up vertically, and then back horizontally. When your snake gets too long, this can help keep it a manageable size.

5. Know when you are and are not trapped.

Remember that if you eat a tile that will turn tiles from red to green, they can be eaten right away, as they turn green as the snake is moving, so you may not be trapped. As well, even if you get stuck in a corner of the level, remember: your snake might just short enough to get out of it, or a small tile you eat will shrink it enough to escape, so don’t give up until the very last moment.

As well, the game starts to get chaotic later on, so you may need to start abandoning certain strategies. Once the numbers start getting into the millions, quickly telling what’s a thousands (K) and millions (M) and a gajillion tile (G) is practically impossible. So throw the small number strategy mostly out of the window, but do focus on corners and serpentining. It takes practice to figure out which strategies are valid right now, and which ones are not. Ultimately, you’ll start to get a sense for how the board is playing, and what you can do to make sure that the run keeps going indefinitely and you can get those high scores.